It's nearly impossible to find any Fiery Furnaces press that doesn't refer to the band as "unique" or "distinctive," but Matt Friedberger, the male half of the brother-sister duo that makes up the Furnaces, doesn't look at it that way.

"We don't think in terms of our peers, in terms of what's 'unique,' " Friedberger said. He said he doesn't buy the oft-used "inaccessible" label attached to their records, either.

"They just sound like normal rock records to us," he said. "It doesn't sound like the Buzzcocks or Kate Bush, because those people already made those records."

Friedberger did say, though, that each Fiery Furnaces record is different from the last, which he credited to the fact that the band is little more than he and his sister, Eleanor.

"It's easy for us to change record to record and tour to tour," he said. "That's the fun of being in a band that's just the two of us."

Friedberger said the band's most recent release, Widow City, focused on the sounds of 1970s rock, from guitar riffs in the style of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin to keys similar to Wings and Stevie Wonder.

They wrote the lyrics, he said, by lifting directly from 70s magazine ads, specifically ads targeted at women, and then writing the rest in the same spirit.

To contrast, 2006's Bitter Tea was made "without a real rhythm section," and 2005's Rehearsing My Choir was narrated by Olga Sarantos, the Friedbergers' grandmother who passed away this past December.

Besides making frequent changes to their sound, Friedberger said, the Fiery Furnaces' live show is a bit different from the band's recorded material.

"It doesn't just sound like the record," Friedberger said. "They're versions of songs from Fiery Furnaces records, interpreted in a Fiery Furnaces way."

While he appreciates fan support and any press the band can get, regardless of how mixed reviews may be ("You're lucky if anybody talks about you at all," he said), Friedberger said any good artist has to be self-motivated to stay excited.

"Making music for other people is like making shirts for other people," he said. "From a consumer standpoint, there's no reason for anyone to keep making music. It would take lifetimes to listen to everything that's already out there.

"But from a producer standpoint, you do need to make things. It's natural to want to keep making music. It's an activity everyone should engage in."

And Friedberger is true to his word: Fiery Furnaces has released a record of some sort every year dating back to 2003.

Furthermore, a live record is due out in the fall and the Furnaces will return to the recording studio in August for their next album, which is already entitled Back to Begamo.

On top of that, Friedberger didn't rule out the possibility of releasing another solo record to follow 2006's Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School.

The show next Wednesday at Lulu's, the Fiery Furnaces' first ever in State College, has been a few years in the making.

Promoter Ted Swanson said he has been trying for a while to bring the band to Happy Valley, but a variety of logistical problems has prevented it from happening until now.

This time around, Swanson said, the band was able to make a stop on its way to Washington, D.C., where it is set to begin a tour with Super Furry Animals.

"I think a lot of people have been waiting to see them," Swanson said. "It's a name that's come up over and over again from people at Penn State. Even back in the Crowbar days, we had kids requesting them, and we like to do stuff people want to see."

And according to Greg Gabbard, City Lights Records owner, the Fiery Furnaces are indeed a band people want to see.

"They've been a regular seller here since their first album," he said. "I can always sell their stuff."